What kind of fantasy adventures would you like to see? (poll)

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, I think the "unusual setting" has to be handled better than it usually is.  Instead of being an excuse to pore through bestiaries for what lives there, it should be distinct by its location and challenges but not contrived.  I was thinking more something along the lines of a quest across the ocean (and perhaps under the surface) rather than across the forest, or a jungle rather than mountains.

[Michael Hopcroft]

An RPG setting needs to be comprehensible if people are going to be able to play in it -- throw too much weirdness out there and players dune out. That was the fate of the astonishingly creative but virtually inexplicable GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands.

 

That is the cause of my old assertion that "anything that appears in a role-playing game is, by definition, a cliche". Amend that to "role-playing game that people actually play" and I may be disturbingly close to right. Pathfinder is popular, and probably has some strengths, but there isn't one truly original thought in the entire product line. Which may be why people like it.

[mhd]

That was the fate of the astonishingly creative but virtually inexplicable GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands.

Was that the one with Poo and his friends as walking gods? Yeah, that was a bit weird...

 

One setting that managed the balance between RPG cliches in general and D&D tropes specifically was Eberron. Not surprisingly, as this was the whole raison d'etre, if I remember correctly (a public contest of "design a setting that makes 3E actually work"). Yet it still had enough original thought to make it memorable.

Two counter-examples I can think of are the Forgotten Realms, where every change in the game rules is forcefully welded onto the setting, and every quasi-medieval fantasy sub-setting has to be imported into its world, and Ptolus, which was a gorgeous product that made a dungeon-delving career seem integrated into the world, yet, again, didn't have enough to set it apart from the rest.

 

HERO, of course, has it very hard in that regard. They say art thrives under restrictions, and there mostly aren't any by design in a generic system. So when desigining settings/adventures, you'll have the "opportunity" to fiddle with both ends. Welcome to the never-ending feedback loop

[Michael Hopcroft]

That was the fate of the astonishingly creative but virtually inexplicable GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands.

 

 

Was that the one with Pooh and his friends as walking gods? Yeah, that was a bit weird...

That's the one (nasty typo, by the way). It was based on one of Robin Laws long-running campaigns. Laws is one of the great designers and creative minds in the RPG business, with some remarkable games to his credit like Heroquest and Feng Shui, but he has never had a big commercial hit. I was in an APA to which he contributed, the legendary Alarums & Excursions, along with Jonathan Tweet who would become the lead designer for D&D 3rd Edition. (Before that gig, Tweet was edgy as edgy could be -- his previous credits included the uber-paranoid Over the Edge and the difficult-to-comprehend Everway.)

[mhd]

Well, maybe not D&D commercial, but he's got a solid string of commercially viable games. Mostly because apart from all the crazy stuff, he's very, very solid when it comes to game mechanics. The same is true for Tweet, of course (e.g. Ars Magica).

 

I think I still got my Everway box stashed somehwere. Wasn't even that weird, I still think it would make a great game for younger players.

[Markdoc]

It's odd, because I think of Laws as a creative and imaginative guy who can't actually design games for **** - which is why, I think, he's never had a hit, even when working with popular, branded material. My personal feeling is that he's too in love with "form" to ask the all-important design question "Does this work?" Ie: function. Any game, no matter how sketchy, can be made to work if the group is prepared to compromise and discuss and fudge things a bit. And in pretty mich every rules set there will be areas of ambiguity - that's the nature of language. But any game where two well-meaning people can read the rules and vehemently disagree on their interpretation is, in my opinion, poorly designed, poorly written or both.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Ndreare]

Marc, I understand your point. But I would say I have not seen a game system, scholarly text, or religious text in my life that could pass that test.

People argue about monopoly and that game is do simple my 5 year old can play.

[mhd]

But any game where two well-meaning people can read the rules and vehemently disagree on their interpretation is, in my opinion, poorly designed, poorly written or both.

Was that a big factor with Lawsian games? Didn't really get to play a lot of them myself, so my view is a bit limited here. I did play a bit of OtE and didn't have many problems with that, but with less crunchy games, a bit of handwaving and fudging is to be expected.

[Christopher R Taylor]

My example of the overly creative but too alien setting is Skyrealms of Jorune.  Amazingly detailed and creative, but incomprehensible.  There was literally not one single hook that a player could grab and find familiar to build from.  You can go too far that way, and an adventure or setting that is like that just can't get any traction.

[Derpy Tubbz]

I agree on Jorune, I bought two boxes and whatever my FLGS could get in at the time.  I bought it mainly for the art work.   Someone put a fligher up in that store that they were running a game of it, rules as written.   I lasted one session, the combat system didn't work for me. I did like the idea of questing, which is now a part of most MMOs.  I wonder how much trouble it would be to convert that setting to the Hero System?

[mhd]

It's been a while, but was Jorune that weird? It did have humans and barbarians with big swords, so that's at least a start.

 

Personally, I always had my problems with WH40K. I'm a jackbooted thug now, yay. I mean it's fine as an over-the-top background for war games and even novels, but for a remotely serious RPG campaign? And (persistent, intentional) comedy at the gaming table is harder than horror. Not everybody is a Seinfeld writer and/or improv master.

Maybe it's because I'm German, and thus totally devoid of humor and comedic sensibilities. Then again, that would mean I should have fewer problems with the whole jackbooted shtick...

 

Let's not even get started with advanced transhumanism.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Humor is one of the hardest things to force or create, its mostly just surprise and irony when well done and that's very tough to pull off.  That said, there is much hilarity every game session from just the clever, intelligent, and talented players I have, unrelated to the game as it might often be.

 

I do think there is a market for unusual settings, as long as you don't go overboard.  People appreciate something different than the "over the mountains and through the forest" fantasy template, I believe.

[bluesguy]

I have been building a new campaign world and I intend to run it as a sandbox type campaign.  I have been buying adventures that can be put into any game.  I usually tweak them a bit to fit my game.  Here are a few examples:

 

• http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/63472/Encounters-Series-0-The-Priest-and-the-Hangman
• http://www.mediafire.com/download/228tceda67fc3sa/NBD-MMFF1-TheHangingGarden.pdf
• http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/100528/PFRPG-The-Ruins?g_sort_test_result=2

 

I like these products because they provide more than an plot outline and they don't assume to much about the setting.  I had to create/use character/monsters from my campaign but aside from that the adventure was ready to go.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Epic long sweeping storylines is making a late push, that's interesting.  Those are hard to write in modules because the longer the story gets, the harder it is to avoid railroading players to keep them on plot (see Dragonlance module line).

[Spence]

caution, rant begins

 

I think the term 'railroading' has been bent out of shape and turned into a crutch for poor role-players. 

 

When you get right down to it there are only two types of RPG games. 

 

Sandbox games.  These do not have any real purpose, the players make PC's and then just wander around doing whatever while the GM makes stuff up on the fly.  You can set an sandbox game in any kind of world and even pre-build encounter material, but in the end it is just the GM ad libbing while the players "do stuff" semi-randomly. 

 

Adventures.  Players take on the roles of major characters and then resolve the crisis/objective.  No matter what it is, any adventure that has a defined objective is "railroading".   The only thing is the degree.  If the objective is to rescue the Princess, then by definition it is railroading.  Because the PC's will have to..gasp...rescue the Princess.        Aarrghh! But I want to just loot and kill..Aaaarrrgggg!!!!

 

I build my adventures as a series of storylines (arc's) each consisting of several 'encounters' that represent a major step in its arc. 

The master arc is what the adventure is actually about.

I also have 2-4 minor arcs, all of which are designed to connect with the master arc but none of them are necessary to complete it. 

 

Each arc has it's encounter/events.  Resolving each one gives the party clues and information.  If I need the PC's to realize that the Goblin/Apache/Saxon raiders are in the area I will have a razed Village/Stagecoach Station/Monastery encounter that I will insert in the party's path.  This is not "Railroading", it is storytelling. 

 

In the end an RPG is not a one sided game where the players just run around whack-a-doodle like a computer game.  It is a two sided creative collaboration where BOTH the players and the Game Master can enjoy themselves.

 

Epic long sweeping storylines is making a late push, that's interesting.  Those are hard to write in modules because the longer the story gets, the harder it is to avoid railroading players to keep them on plot (see Dragonlance module line).

 

If I am a player in a game and that game is set in a specific world and the GM has explained to me the purpose of the adventure, then he should not need have to "keep me on plot".  I am playing a role within the game and should be trying to achieve the end of the plot.  I may need guidance if I misunderstood something, but I am not Sammy munchkin kill'in and loot'in, I am the PC I am playing.  If I am playing the "Good Guy Knight in Shinning Armor" aka Sir Gawain, it is not 'railroading' to tell me I am not supposed to be raping a pillaging and I should be opposing the horde of invading barbarians.  

 

Christopher T, please don't take my general rant as pointed at you, I have read your posts over the years and you have some good stuff.  You just triggered my general rant about how the term 'railroading' has gone from meaning an over controlling GM, to its present form which is essentially an 3 year old whine fest by piss poor non-roleplayers whenever they are required to think.    

 

I shudder to think of the mess that a Detective/Investigation game would become without a plot line.   An adventure has to have a plot line or it is just a series of random encounters. 

 

Whenever I make a PC I ask the GM to give me a run down on the "world" and then ask him what kind of PC he needs for the game.  The fun is not making the most bad assed killing machine and then killing stuff.  The fun is making the character and then playing out that character. 

 

/rant

 

 

[IndianaJoe3]

Adventures.  Players take on the roles of major characters and then resolve the crisis/objective.  No matter what it is, any adventure that has a defined objective is "railroading".   The only thing is the degree.  If the objective is to rescue the Princess, then by definition it is railroading.  Because the PC's will have to..gasp...rescue the Princess.        Aarrghh! But I want to just loot and kill..Aaaarrrgggg!!!!

 

I think you're using a very broad definition of the term. I use it when the storyline has already been plotted out, and the characters have no way of influencing it in any significant way. All they can do is follow the rails to the next plot event.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I get what you mean by the misuse of the term railroad - its certainly misused for any nudging or direction by the GM toward a plot or storyline.  But there certainly are times that a GM can become ridiculously controlling and disallow or block anything except a certain envisioned storyline in their head.  In my experience the longer, more complex, and more specific an adventure line becomes, the harder it is to corral players.

 

See, it doesn't just have to be about slaughtering things or staying on plot; Role Players can be side tracked very easily as well.  A personal vendetta from some slight, a love interest, a curiosity the character wants to follow up, a thousand things can send players off on some other tangent with their character that can have nothing at all to do with the epic story line.  The longer it goes or the more complicated the plotline, the more likely this can take place.  What the GM meant as some minor single-session side bit to establish a later event can become a whole separate storyline out of control.

[IndianaJoe3]

I get what you mean by the misuse of the term railroad - its certainly misused for any nudging or direction by the GM toward a plot or storyline.  But there certainly are times that a GM can become ridiculously controlling and disallow or block anything except a certain envisioned storyline in their head.  In my experience the longer, more complex, and more specific an adventure line becomes, the harder it is to corral players.

 

I think published adventures are more prone to it. I've played in an Adventure Path were I was moved to comment, "OK, we follow the train tracks back to town," because there was no way for the adventure to proceed if we didn't.

[Pegasus40218]

I think published adventures are more prone to it. I've played in an Adventure Path were I was moved to comment, "OK, we follow the train tracks back to town," because there was no way for the adventure to proceed if we didn't.

Amen.  Over the years, I have come to despise "canned" adventures / campaigns.

 

As someone in a gaming groups with rotating GMs, I recognize that having pre-genned material is an IMMENSE time-saver.  However, I've seen a number of problems -- and this may be something particular to my gaming group. 

 

First, quite often, the GMs seem ill-prepared for the material they've selected to run.  This may be a result of my group meeting and playing every week, and it can be difficult to find the necessary time to prepare.

 

Second, with "canned" adventures/adventure paths, the characters very rarely matter to the overall story...What's going to happen is going to happen.  A character's background, motivations, etc. don't really matter...and character evolution during the course of the campaign doesn't result in any evolution of the overall plot.

 

The end result of this in my gaming group has been that nobody bothers to come up with character backgrounds or motivations anymore.  The characters have devolved into 2-dimensional card-board cut-outs consisting mostly of min-maxed combat statistics.  Furthermore, when someone tries to run a different type of game -- one that will account for player character backgrounds and interests -- it's as if the players creativity when it comes to coming up with interesting and imaginative characters has atrophied from lack of use.  Everything is basically hackneyed or cliched -- the simplest thing possible to meet the GM's "requirement" to provide a background.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I think that this may be why "sandbox" adventures are doing well in the poll.   Then its just a setting with different potential encounters and storylines and the players can run amok their own way.

 

When I write an adventure I try to come up with windows of opportunity and options for a variety of character types and backgrounds.  Sort of like the way first person shooters started adding in stealth options in the last decade.  Its one thing to have a setting, but another to make it work for an inventive player, to reward their creativity.

 

The best way to start this kind of thinking is to have the way you introduce the characters into the adventure be more flexible.  Sometimes its okay to use the "you wake up in a slave ship chained to an oar" intro but having a wide array of possible options seems ideal most of the time.

[Pegasus40218]

I like to try to provide my players with the broad strokes of the campaign setting, but (within reason for the campaign setting) let them play what they want, with a strong emphasis on creating an interesting back-story for the character.  I then take that back-story and try to work up adventure ideas and encounters that build upon the characters' backgrounds.  I try not to plot more than two or three games' worth of material, that way, I can adjust to whatever it is that catches the player's imagination and run with it.  If there's a sudden change, I'm not out a huge amount of prep work, and I try to organically evolve the story to fit what they've taken an interest in.  Sure, the players can (and will) throw a curveball forcing you to wing-it for the rest of a session, but that's generally not too difficult to deal with (particularly if you've got a few rival NPCs you can throw into an encounter to help you get through the session).

 

Simply put, I like the characters (and by extension) the players to help direct the story.  With a good group of role-players, I've found that this works relatively well.  If the group is more into "roll-playing", it tends to fall flat.

[Markdoc]

There is - as in most things - a middle way. I tend to run multiyear campaigns (the last game lasted about 4 1/2 years real time and covered about 4 years game time, the prior one lasted about 4 years real time and 5 years game-time). And so on. In both cases, the campaigns had a defined story arc and they ended more or less precisely where I planned them to end when I drafted them, years before. To do that successfully and still have a coherent story, requires plotting things out well in advance. Besides, I'm addicted to those forehead-slapping moments when the players realise that something that happened ages ago is directly relevant to whatever it is they are doing right now

 

Nobody - except certain GMs - likes a railroad. Players like to feel like their PCs have some sort of relevance, and most GMs will feel pained if they have to direct the action by telling the players - out of game - that they have to do something "for the good of the game": it means that the game is not, by itself, compelling enough to get the PCs moving in the "correct" direction.

 

So the middle way combines both a sandbox and a path (not a railroad). The difference is that you can wander on and off a path, and come back to it sometimes by another path. I do this by sketching out in broad details the whole story arc, together with important sections,a timeline and a conclusion. I also prep. all the backstory material (important NPCs, geography, economy, politics, what monster live where, etc.) Not in great detail, but in outline. When the adventure advances to a point where that detail becomes important, I fill it in. If it never does, I don't bother (and thus don't waste time). I also prep a bunch of generic environments (ruined castle, dungeon, slaver's ship, noble's palace, medium sized village, etc) and a few generic encounters (army patrol, peasant militia, bandit group, Militant wizard and lackeys, etc) and ... important this one ... some suitable names based on local culture (so that I don't have to try and find a name for an NPC off the cuff: no "Bob the Barbarian").

 

That's the sandbox. So if the players decide that something else has suddenly merited their attention (like in the last game, they got heavily involved in investigating a minor NPC who had no connection to the main story at all), then I am prepped to cover that. I also write mini-scenarios which have no connection to the main plot so that I have something meatier to offer the players when they decide to go off-plot, and which can be dropped into the storyline at various points. just for variety's sake. I am never - literally never - caught off guard if the PCs decide to wander off and do something else, because I have all the materials to run games on the fly. It might not be Ennie stuff, but it works.

 

The trick to getting the players to decide to advance the plot themselves is actually very simple: it has to be interesting to them (so that they want to find out what happens next) and (preferably) it should offer them something they want for their PC (wealth, power, revenge, a neato-magic sword, whatever)

 

The last key point is that I try to never write scenarios where the PCs must do precisely this one thing to move forward. There should be consequences if they fail (or fail to act) and it's fine if there is one way that works best, plus a bunch or really suboptimal choices. But the PCs should never lack for actions to move the plot forward, and it should always be clear to them at least one or two things that they could be doing (even if some of those things are dangerous or difficult) and even if it is not clear which of them they should be doing. A well-written scenario in a campaign should always have a "PCs screw up" option for the next step.

 

Of course, if your players are the Red Box Ninjas, then none of this would help, but I've had about 6 different groups over the years (with quite different backgrounds), and this approach so far has worked with all of them.

 

cheers,Mark

[Steve]

One thing to always try and be prepared for in plotting out a campaign's story arc is the "Lure of the Unexpectedly Shiny Object." In my experience, this can be an NPC or a place that is not intended to be important but somehow ends up being very intriguing to players.

A player needs a clue to solve something, so I guide them to speak to a certain NPC to help them. Maybe it's a sage, a teacher at the local university, or the barkeeper in a seedy dive, but something in how I presented the NPC catches player interest. They want to interact more with them, so what was meant to be a one-off encounter developed into a recurring campaign character. Meanwhile, my prepared NPCs get ignored. Over time I've learned to be more flexible in my NPC creation and let players focus me in on the ones they want to plumb the depths of. I then take campaign plot points and introduce them through these NPCs.

Places are tougher. I will mention in passing some of the scenery to provide color as the players move about, and then one thing seems to fasten their attention that I wasn't expecting. They're walking down a town street and pass shops, and I'm describing random shops and mention there's a chocalatier in my descriptions. That merited players going in to see what's up with this shop and forced me to start thinking on my feet.

[Scott Baker]

One thing to always try and be prepared for in plotting out a campaign's story arc is the "Lure of the Unexpectedly Shiny Object." In my experience, this can be an NPC or a place that is not intended to be important but somehow ends up being very intriguing to players.

I've been that player. A casually mentioned historical group (in the campaign) (and which I can't remember the name of) were known for flying the sky in their airships. And thus my search for the legendary airships began!

[Christopher R Taylor]

The tough part at first for a GM is learning what sort of thing is shiny to the players.  Each group is different and until you get a feel for that it can be difficult to control or take advantage of.  That might be another reason the sandbox is popular, it lets you fit in any real group of players because its just a setting and you can let the go nuts until you get a handle on them.